His Big Bat Has Manager Seriously Considering Him if an Ailing Beltran Can't Play Right Field

For Jerry Manuel, the team's manager last year, it was the crack of Duda's bat connecting with a ball during batting practice. Manuel couldn't get enough of that sound. That sound kept Duda in the Mets' lineup throughout the first half of September, even though he went hitless in 33 of his first 34 big-league at-bats. For Manuel's successor, Terry Collins, it's the sight of Duda's left-handed swing—his 6-foot-4, 225-pound frame, his stroke's fluidity and power—that has made Duda a candidate to start at a position that, for all intent and purpose, he has never played before.

ENLARGE

Lucas Duda's powerful left-handed swing has him in contention for playing time in right field despite no real experience playing the position.
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That position is right field, a spot in the Mets' starting lineup that, unless Carlos Beltran soon proves he can stay on the field for two consecutive days, could remain vacant for a while. The uncertainty of Beltran's status leaves the job up for grabs among three players—Duda, Scott Hairston and Willie Harris—and the 25-year-old Duda is the youngest and most intriguing option.

It seems a strange thing, to suggest that a player who batted .202 as a rookie might most help a team offensively. But in Duda's case, the apparent contradiction is as much an acknowledgement of his potential as a hitter as it is of the development he still must make as a rightfielder.

After that 1-for-34 waste land to begin his Mets career, he hit .320 with four home runs and a .993 on-base-plus-slugging percentage over his final 50 at-bats last season, and he's put up comparable numbers this spring: a .297 average, four doubles, two home runs.

For the sake of such production, Collins is willing to try to shoehorn Duda into right, though it might not necessarily be a comfortable fit. Of Duda's 425 games of minor-league experience, he played exactly one game in right field, for Double-A Binghamton in 2009. He started 23 games for the Mets last year, all of them in left field, all of them after a concussion had sidelined Jason Bay.

But Bay had been playing regularly in left again this spring; the only other position where Duda has spent significant time is first base, and he isn't about to supplant Ike Davis there. So Collins has had him taking fly balls in right field during batting practices and has begun using him there in games.

Duda admitted that he is a bit unsure of himself in right, and his tentativeness shows in the way he tracks the ball off the bat. "I really haven't had an exhausting amount of work out there," he said.

Of course, neither has Hairston, 30, who has played eight games in right field over his seven-year major-league career. Harris, 32, is the most experienced rightfielder of the trio, but even he has appeared in only 45 games there and has spent most of his 10-year career as a pinch-hitter and utility player.

"We've been doing this for a long, long time," Harris said. "Our coaches said it the other day: If you can't catch a pop-up by now, something's wrong."

Mets general manager Sandy Alderson suggested to reporters earlier this month that the right-handed-hitting Hairston and the left-handed-hitting Harris could form a veteran platoon in Beltran's absence. Both players have hit as well or better than Duda this spring. Hairston is batting .407 with two home runs; Harris, .345 with five doubles and a homer.

Collins, though, seems enamored with the possibility of Duda's becoming an everyday player. And the Mets' decision to option Fernando Martinez, formerly the organization's top outfield prospect, to minor-league camp last week was obvious evidence of the regard they have for Duda. The swooning over him, it would seem, is spreading.

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